This month, we’re starting something new! This is our first quarterly newsletter to let you know what’s happening in the areas of work that Stop the Money Pipeline and our partners are focusing on. Last month, we saw an exciting wave of anti-fossil fuel actions in New York and across the country, with young people and frontline organizers leading the way, several of whom were arrested multiple times during the week of action. Read on to learn more about the work and how you can get involved:
Wave of Action: Between September 13th and 20th, we saw a major upsurge in escalated, confrontational action, calling out the banks and financial institutions fueling the climate crisis.
👉 On Sept 13th, activists blocked the street outside BlackRock’s HQ to demand an end to fossil fuel financing. 5 people were arrested.
👉 On Sept 14th, we blockaded every entrance into Citibank’s Global HQ, more than one thousand white-collar Citi workers were unable to get into work; workers backed up in the hundreds in the plaza outside as activists explained why they were going to be hours late for work that day. 24 people were arrested.
👉 On Sept 15th, People over Planet & their allies occupied and shut down into the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) to protest the museum’s ties to Henry Kravis, founder and chairman of KKR, a private equity firm that has been buying up oil and gas companies and is the primary owner of the Coastal GasLink pipeline that’s being fiercely opposed by the Wet’suwet’en nation. 16 people were arrested.
👉 On Sept 18th, hundreds of people blockaded the Federal Reserve to demand that it regulates Wall Street and ends financing for fossil fuels. 108 were arrested.
👉 On Sept 19th, frontline leaders and allies blockaded the doors to Bank of America’s HQ. 21 were arrested.
If you were inspired by the wave of action, we also encourage you to check out our co-director’s piece about what it might mean for the future of the climate movement!
Bank Campaigns:
These actions are part of broader campaigns to get big banks to stop financing the climate crisis. People have been taking action all summer long.
The dozens of birddogs, disruptions, and public interventions of Big Bank business-as-usual included: Activists chasing Citi CEO Jane Fraser off the stage at a prestigious conference; over 600 people from across the country blockading the office of Citi Board Chair John Dugan, and then dozens visiting his ritzy Hamptons vacation house weeks later. These actions have been global, with organizers from LA to Dublin protesting Wall Street Banks’ continued financing of the toxic fossil fuel industry.
Climate Financial Regulation:
Throughout August, dozens of people in the STMP coalition representing about 20 groups met with Members of Congress to seek more cosponsors for the Fossil Free Finance Act (FFFA). The Fossil Free Finance Act would mandate that the Federal Reserve wind down Wall Street’s fossil fuel financing. Rep.’s Ro Khanna, Becca Balint, Janice Schackowsky, and Chellie Pingree have joined as a result of our efforts, and more are expected (see House cosponsors here and Senate cosponsors here). The FFFA now has a total of 22 cosponsors.
In major news out of California, Gov. Gavin Newsom has promised to sign SB 253, a bill that will require the largest corporations (including oil companies and the biggest Wall Street banks) to disclose ALL of their emissions. He will also sign a related bill requiring companies to disclose their climate-related financial risk and share their plans for mitigating that risk. We’ve been campaigning since July, asking those of you in California to send emails to your legislators, sign a petition, and email the Governor’s office. In total, STMP California digital activists took more than 4,000 actions in the past several months to support the passage of these bills. Those of you who took action, as well as all of our California organizational partners such as Greenlining Institute and Climate Action California who worked on this, deserve a billion thanks as this law will change emissions reporting not just for California, but the whole world!
Last but not least, August and September saw escalated actions on the Federal Reserve, with Climate Defiance disrupting the Jackson Hole Summit and 119+ people getting arrested outside of the Federal Reserve Branch of New York. Thank you to the activists and organizers who put their bodies on the line to call out the global laggards at the Fed. To learn more about why the Federal Reserve is a key target for the climate movement, read Revolving Door Project’s piece in the American Prospect. Last Thursday, Positive Money US hosted a Twitter storm for the Fed’s teacher town hall and organized questions on climate to be submitted.
Private Inequity, a global coalition demanding that private equity stops investing in fossil fuels and the destruction of communities, launched in September with a report on KKR, one of the world’s largest firms. Uncovering KKR’s Environmental Responsibility Gap details the firm’s continued investments in fossil fuels (78 percent of its energy portfolio) and features stories of environmental injustices in three communities with KKR-funded projects.
Two Hereditary Chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation traveled to New York to demand that KKR stop work on the Coastal GasLink pipeline that is being built without consent on their territory. On Sept. 15th, they went to MoMA to demand that the museum cut ties with KKR. Later that day, climate activists shut down the museumand vowed that actions at MoMA will continue until demands are met. Join the movement by signing the petition calling on MoMA to stop doing business with climate criminals.
Insure Our Future:
Insure Our Future has had a busy summer, as the campaign pressures insurers to back away from new oil and gas amidst hurricanes, wildfires, and catastrophic flooding. Insurers both provide insurance and investment in oil and gas, and the US insurers are on the absolute bottom of the barrel when it comes to environmental and social governance policies.
Last month, Public Citizen and many grassroots partners took to the streets, projecting images on the AIG headquarters and protesting at their NYC offices. Listen to this audio documentary of the action by Sanctuary Radio. And retweet these tweets here, here, and here.
This coming fall, expect even more moves from the policy and regulatory work, with a continued push to ensure everyday people receive insurance, and that the large corporations receive scrutiny and pressure from regulators about their role in funding and insuring climate destroying projects. The Senate Banking Committee launched an investigation into the insurance industry’s role in the climate crisis, and had a powerful hearing.
The coalition is busy making dream headlines – Check out and share some recent news coverage of the campaigns:
The Climate Safe Pensions Network has been very busy this summer skilling up and planning actions for Climate Week in NYC. Many of our member groups are participating in NYC actions or hosting solidarity actions. We also had some great presentations from our friends at Reclaim Finance and Carbon Tracker this past month. New reports and data are always helpful to pension campaigns!
Are you interested in joining or starting a pension divestment campaign? Join the Climate Safe Pensions Network by emailing Amy at Stand.earth amy@stand.earth. We meet bi-weekly on Tuesdays at 11PST/2EST and everyone is always welcome to join us. It’s a great community of people who work on pension divestment and we are always looking for people to join us on these exciting campaigns.
Vanguard SOS campaign:
Last week, Vanguard sponsored Future Proof – a festival in Huntington Beach that brought together wealth management experts and financial advisors. Organizers stood at the entrance to the festival with a clear message: Vanguard might be sponsoring Future Proof, but they aren’t future proofing our investments. The festival took place just two weeks after Vanguard disclosed that it supported only 2% of environmental and social shareholder resolutions in the United States during the 2023 proxy season – down from a meager 12% in 2022.
It’s more clear than ever that Vanguard is more concerned with partisan backlash by U.S. conservatives than with its fiduciary duty. Please join us in letting Vanguard know that we’re not okay with how the company is mismanaging our futures. If you are a client of Vanguard, take action here. If you are a concerned activist, follow this link.
Phew! That’s a lot of climate action. Be sure to check out the resources and articles linked in the sections above. THANK YOU to our partners for these exciting updates.
In Solidarity,
– the Stop the Money Pipeline team
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